


Fidelity

by TornThorn



Series: My Grade School Obsession was Greek Myths [2]
Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Genre: Background Circe/Odysseus, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:41:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24619294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TornThorn/pseuds/TornThorn
Summary: Sweet Penelope, clever Penelope, tell me true-
Relationships: Odysseus/Penelope
Series: My Grade School Obsession was Greek Myths [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1779955
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Fidelity

Sweet Penelope, clever Penelope

tell me true:

As your wedded husband travelled so far away

for the sake of a woman

he once claimed to love but had failed to gain

did you not resent him?

(Even a little?)

And I ask also: When,

after years without him, years without word or sight,

years where you were beset on all sides

by others, desperate and aggressive

demanding your hand,

was the trick with the loom even about your husband?

Did the scheme have a single thing to do

with believing the father of your children would return?

Or was it a forceful excuse

when others pressed their suits?

‘See Fair Penelope, so loyal and true,

She would wait forever for her lost husband’,

they all whisper, thinking of how it would be

were they your husband.

And the final question, of course,

if you can bear to answer:

In the moment you knew he had returned

from across the ocean, after years and years,

your children long grown, your harassers entrenched,

your old life forgotten,

did you take him back for love?

Or simply because, compared to everyone else who had asked

he was the best of a bad lot?

(And when you shared a bed for the first time in

near a lifetime,

did he ever tell you the truth of how you

spent so much time and energy being faithful to him

while he had betrayed and nearly forsaken you altogether

for a sorceress who offered him peace

while turning his men into animals for slaughter?)

Tell me, Penelope:

was he worth the wait?

**Author's Note:**

> (Sometimes you realize that the shit your dad put your mom through reminds you of certain Hellenic figures.)


End file.
